Wilson Brothers Refuse To Sell Negro Retail Merchants
'Tis a true saying, that we never get too old to learn. During this week Colored business men received some surprising information, and in the meantime were taught a new lesson. Wilson Bros. have been makers and importers of men's furnishings for over sixty years. They are among the leading wholesale merchants of this country, with headquarters in Chicago, and branch offices in New York, Detroit, Boston, Louisville and Paris, France. Negroes throughout the country are wearers of Wilson Bros. shorts, collars, all grades of underwear and other furnishings for men. They buy them from the white retail furnishing stores. Step in the smallest haberdashery in the smallest community and you can buy Wilson Bros.' brand of goods, provided that store is owned and operated by white people. Wilson Bros. do not sell to stores owned by Negroes. They are the biggest of business men; they are rich and one would think above the smallness of race prejudice, but they are not. They draw the line on retail merchants because their skin is not white. It is a long established policy of the Wilson Bros. Company. It is said that it is a request of white retailers who have gotten rich off Negro dollars. They asked that goods not be sold to Negro merchants whose purpose it is to sell to members of their own race, and their wish was met. Can you beat it? This fact came to light during this week. The manager of the Commercial Ladies and Gents Furnishing Store at Sixth and Walnut streets, the only store of its kind in this section owned and operated by Negroes, called on the local representative for the purpose of placing an order for goods. The representative said he was sorry, that he would be pleased to supply the Commercial, but his company did not do business with Negroes. Speaking as plain as he did, the representative left (Continued on page 8)

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